Latest Patch Notes that released this week. It looks like they are making quite a bit of progress.

This is from Luthier in the 1C forums.

Thank you for purchasing Cliffs of Dover! If you have previously purchased our sims, you
should know that they are a constant work in progress. We as a team are proud of the fact
that we continuously support, expand and improve on our releases. We hope, with your
support, to continue this tradition and to help the series grow in the coming years.

The current patch contains the following changes:

DRM
* Solidshield protection was removed from the game. The game no longer requires a
second authentication key. Cliffs of Dover only needs to be authenticated once with a
single key during first install. NOTE: this action is automatic and does not require any
action from the player.

GRAPHICS
* Significantly optimized buildings. Performance gain is less noticeable on above-
recommended specs;
* Removed momentary freezes caused by trees and other vegetation; also changed the
way far-away trees are generated;
* Improved block loading, i.e. the periodic loading of 8x8km terrain blocks as the
player moves about the terrain. Performance gain is most noticeable on
above-recommended specs;
* Expanded the resolution selection in Video Options to include non-native options;
* Streamlined ****pit render. Also made sure that stars and other bright objects no
longer shine through the ****pit at night.

AIRCRAFT
* Removed “rubber bands” from player aircraft that made its movement smoother by
delaying graphical representation of the plane behind its physical position,
with the rare unintended consequence of making tracers appear to fly out sideways;
* Reworked aircraft visual fx and added some new ones, such as new MG131 hit FX;
* Improved performance in FM module by 0,001%;
* Turned on ****pit gauges in the FIAT G.50;
* Fixed fps drop when zooming in on a bomber formation;
* Added a special penalty to aircraft with large parts of wing missing. Though this
is less realistic, this will address most common misconceptions while we work on
even more accurate wing calculations specifically for this scenario;
* Fixed issue when missing control surfaces could still control aircraft;
* Fixed some damage visuals on FIAT G.50;
* Fixed FIAT G.50 visual and control animations;
* Fixed FIAT G.50 receiving too much lift despite wing damage;
* Fixed FIAT BR.20 radiator flaps disappearing in rare cases;
* Fixed Blenheim propellers and turret visuals;
* Fixed some He 115 visuals;
* When a He 115 loses a float, the physical behaviour model will no longer lose a
marble;
* He-115 nose gunner will no longer attempt to hang out of a detached nose section;
* Fixed a visual issue with the Hurricane radiator flap;
* Ju 87 floor window no longer affects the sea;
* Fixed minor visual details in the He-111;
* Damaged Wellingtons will no longer occasionally disappear at a distance;
* Sunderland's top turret will always behave properly when the plane is broken in
half;
* Fixed an issue when engine controls could fail to react to user input for 2
seconds after mission start with Anthropomorphic Control switched to ON;
* Fixed an issue when the Bf 109 on Anthropomorphic Control with Complex Engine
Management would also lock other controls;
* You will now see overspeed FX and damage when expected;
* Bumped up engine radiator drag to more realistic levels;
* Exposed bulkheads left after engine detachent on 2-motors will now produce
significantly more drag;
* Adjusted magnetic compass damping to match the characteristics of a Soviet A-4
compass, as many were unhappy with its present wobbling;
* Fixed minor Bf 109 damage visuals;
* Reduced Bf 109 flaps deployment time to 25 seconds.

MISC
* Redesigned multiplayer client and server GUI;
* Fixed multiplayer server search;
* Added Voice and Music volume control options in Sound Options;
* Made multiple other fixes to the sound engine;
* Cleaned out some stuff being stored in memory, putting less stress on lower-end
machines, especially running DX9;
* Changed bail-out camera sequence for the player;
* Captured AWOL location labels in Full Mission Builder and put them back to work;
* Fixed some erroneous location labels around the map;
* Made numerous changes to localization texts;

If you are experiencing an issue with framerate in the game, disabling Aero Desktop
Composition in windows can slightly improve in-game FPS. NOTE that this is an unsupported
feature at this time. If you experience any problems, please reenable Aero again. Aero is
only available in Windows Vista and Windows 7 and is not available in Windows XP.

1. Brose to the main install flder for Cliffs of Dover. By default it is
(Program Files)\Steam\steamapps\common\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover
where (Program Files) is the actual physical location that can vary for your individual
machine.

2. Find a file called Launcher.exe in the folder
(it may simply be Launcher, if you have disabled the display of file extensions in
Windows)

Well they range anywhere from Microsoft Forcefeedback 2 Sticks to HOTAS. HOTAS systems are great but they are more on the expensive side.

Logitec G940 with Force Feedback though I've hearn it has had some issues...
Saitek has a number of sticks and HOTAS setups relatively inexpensive
CH more expensive but very solid products
Thrustmaster WartHog again really nice stick but not cheap